Decisions That Cite It

Rules & Quotes

[PROCESS] {1} Adopting the machine-or-transformation test as the sole test for what constitutes a "process" (as opposed to just an important and useful clue) violates these statutory interpretation principles. Section 100(b) provides that "[t]he term `process' means process, art or method, and includes a new use of a known process, machine, manufacture, composition of matter, or material." The Court is unaware of any "`ordinary, contemporary, common meaning,'" Diehr, supra, at 182, of the definitional terms "process, art or method" that would require these terms to be tied to a machine or to transform an article. ... This Court's precedents establish that the machine-or-transformation test is a useful and important clue, an investigative tool, for determining whether some claimed inventions are processes under Section 101. The machine-or-transformation test is not the sole test for deciding whether an invention is a patent-eligible "process."

[BUSINESS] {2} Section 101 similarly precludes the broad contention that the term "process" categorically excludes business methods. The term "method," which is within Section 100(b)'s definition of "process", at least as a textual matter and before consulting other limitations in the Patent Act and this Court's precedents, may include at least some methods of doing business. ... The Court is unaware of any argument that the "`ordinary, contemporary, common meaning,'" Diehr, supra, at 182, of "method" excludes business methods. Nor is it clear how far a prohibition on business method patents would reach, and whether it would exclude technologies for conducting a business more efficiently. ... The argument that business methods are categorically outside of Section 101's scope is further undermined by the fact that federal law explicitly contemplates the existence of at least some business method patents. Under 35 U.S.C. Section 273(b)(1), if a patent-holder claims infringement based on "a method in [a] patent," the alleged infringer can assert a defense of prior use. For purposes of this defense alone, "method" is defined as "a method of doing or conducting business." Section 273(a)(3). In other words, by allowing this defense the statute itself acknowledges that there may be business method patents. Section 273's definition of "method," to be sure, cannot change the meaning of a prior-enacted statute. But what Section 273 does is clarify the understanding that a business method is simply one kind of "method" that is, at least in some circumstances, eligible for patenting under Section 101. A conclusion that business methods are not patentable in any circumstances would render Section 273 meaningless. This would violate the canon against interpreting any statutory provision in a manner that would render another provision superfluous.

{3} In light of these precedents, it is clear that petitioners' application is not a patentable "process." Claims 1 and 4 in petitioners' application explain the basic concept of hedging, or protecting against risk: "Hedging is a fundamental economic practice long prevalent in our system of commerce and taught in any introductory finance class." 545 F. 3d, at 1013 (Rader, J., dissenting); see, e.g., D. Chorafas, Introduction to Derivative Financial Instruments 75-94 (2008); C. Stickney, R. Weil, K. Schipper, J. Francis, Financial Accounting: An Introduction to Concepts, Methods, and Uses 581-582 (13th ed. 2010); S. Ross, R. Westerfield, B. Jordan, Fundamentals of Corporate Finance 743-744 (8th ed. 2008). The concept of hedging, described in claim 1 and reduced to a mathematical formula in claim 4, is an unpatentable abstract idea, just like the algorithms at issue in Benson and Flook. Allowing petitioners to patent risk hedging would preempt use of this approach in all fields, and would effectively grant a monopoly over an abstract idea.

{4} Petitioners' remaining claims are broad examples of how hedging can be used in commodities and energy markets. Flook established that limiting an abstract idea to one field of use or adding token postsolution components did not make the concept patentable. That is exactly what the remaining claims in petitioners' application do. These claims attempt to patent the use of the abstract idea of hedging risk in the energy market and then instruct the *1616 use of well-known random analysis techniques to help establish some of the inputs into the equation. Indeed, these claims add even less to the underlying abstract principle than the invention in Flook did, for the Flook invention was at least directed to the narrower domain of signaling dangers in operating a catalytic converter.

{5} And nothing in today's opinion should be read as endorsing interpretations of § 101 that the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has used in the past. See, e.g., State Street, 149 F. 3d, at 1373; ATT Corp., 172 F. 3d, at 1357. It may be that the Court of Appeals thought it needed to make the machine-or-transformation test exclusive precisely because its case law had not adequately identified less extreme means of restricting business method patents, including (but not limited to) application of our opinions in Benson, Flook, and Diehr. In disapproving an exclusive machine-or-transformation test, we by no means foreclose the Federal Circuit's development of other limiting criteria that further the purposes of the Patent Act and are not inconsistent with its text.